The legend, yes the legend!!!!

Alas, we have lost yet another legend and another of our childhood heroes. We Indians are basically cricket lovers, well most of us I mean. If someone from any other sport had to make his or her impact on us, it had to be someone like Maradona in their sport. He was a magician on run with a ball at his feet.

Indian cricket was almost at its best in 1986. Kapil Dev was our hero. He was athletic, aggressive, swift and had caught the attention of the nation like no other. It had to take a herculean effort for someone from any other sport to shift that attention away from cricket.

Maradona did exactly that during the 86 World Cup at Mexico. We knew of Mexico only from our textbooks. Any mention of that place henceforth is associated with Football and Maradona. By 1984 he was already a famed personality in football due to his record-breaking contract of $7.5m with Napoli Club. It did not matter to us. Our first glimpse of him was of course the 1986 World Cup.

I am not sure if any single player earlier had such an impact on a World Cup event. 1986 was his and completely his. Critics hate him for that goal, but even other than that he had his moments in that event and in plenty.

The divinity and the devil in his game came to the fore in that single match, the quarterfinals against England. If you hated him for the ‘Hand of God’ goal, in minutes he made you adore him with that magical goal going past half of the England players. The goal is considered the ‘Goal of the Century’.

He was a pale shadow of himself by 1990, but still managed to take his team to the finals. He almost lost his way by 1994.

The argument of who was better, Pele or Maradona will go on. For us it is Maradona because he was of our time and we watched him live.

S P Balasubramaniam - The everlasting melody

For us in the 80s, Radio and Akshavani were an integral part of our lives. Television was there, but TV time was primarily in the evenings. Radio also served like a clock, alarm. Radio ran continuously in normal middle-class homes. Some voices became immortal, even those reading the News.

My mom being a schoolteacher needed to know the time while cooking in the morning without seeing the clock. Radio was the solution. My father who would work in shifts had his own Radio schedule. So for years, we grew up listening to the radio. Radio did not go off even when we were studying or while doing homework.

Morning 8.30 to 9.30 was the time for Kannada movie songs in Vividh Bharathi. One good thing about Akashavani was that it mentioned all involved in a song which it played. The music director, the lyricist and the singers always got their credit unlike now. For years we kept on hearing the name of SP Balasubramaniam. That time we mostly heard 3 names – SPB, PB Srinivas and Dr Rajkumar. Out of the 12-13 songs in that slot, SP Balasubramaniam easily featured in 7 to 8 songs.

What we repeatedly see, listen, hear in our childhood remains forever. With the news of the demise of SPB, it feels like a very big part of our childhood is gone. So many of our childhood memories are attached with those songs and that divine voice of SPB.

He has sung almost 40,000 songs, but his impact on film music is beyond those numbers. How he managed so many songs and matched the voices of the actor on screen is a wonder.

For millions of us, who never saw him but only heard, enjoyed his voice, he is still there somewhere. Every time we hear his songs, he lives on. That is the greatness of art.

RIP sir.